“Stop it.” A cry of pain and anger tore from her throat. She buried her head in her hands. Faux Paw bounded off the bed, looking perturbed by the strange noise, and skulked from the room.
Max halted, staring at Betty’s huddled, miserable form. His fingernails dug into his palms. He was so afraid of losing her that he reached blindly for ways to keep her, even if they were harsh. “I chased you, but in the end it was you who made the decision to come to my bed. I never made promises I couldn’t keep.”
“I never said that you did.” Her voice was distraught, but she laughed brokenly. Her laughter died quickly. “But I won’t be a fool again.” She raised her head and looked at him grimly. “I have to back away from this relationship before it ruins us both. I thought I could deal with it. But I can’t. I love you too much.”
“You’re not backing away from it. That’s impossible to do, and you know it.”
“Watch me. I’m moving to town—”
“The hell you are.” He hated what he was about to do, but he was desperate. “We’re partners. Whether you want it that way or not.”
Her eyes widened. “What do you mean?”
“I mean if you move out of this house, I’ll sell your barbecue sauce recipe lock, stock, and mushrooms to the head honcho down at Goody Foods.”
She covered her mouth and looked at him in horrified disbelief. “You couldn’t know what’s in that recipe.”
Max walked to the chair and sat down on the edge of its seat. Leaning forward, he fixed a narrowed, unyielding gaze on her. “My grandfather was a sailor. He must have learned how to make the key ingredient somewhere in the Orient. He brought home an unusual variety of mushrooms. He grew them in the cellar. His notes say that after they’re harvested, the secret is to put them in a keg of water and let them ferment. Then use the juice to make a sort of soy sauce, which is used as flavoring in the barbecue sauce.”
He could tell from her stricken expression that he had confirmed the truth. He didn’t feel good about the aura of defeat in her eyes. “I could list the rest of the ingredients, if you want,” he told her gruffly. “But they’re pretty ordinary. Honey, ketchup, a few herbs—”
“All right. Now what?” She shut her eyes, took a deep breath, then watched him with troubled resolve. “You won’t sell the recipe.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I know you. You’re not capable of hurting me that way.”
He bowed his head, fighting shame, but also proud that she trusted him. Her trust, however, could undermine his position. “I don’t want to sabotage your business.” He arched a brow. “All I want is an ironclad hold on your life.”
“I see.”
“We’re going to be partners,” he repeated. “I’ve got twenty-five thousand dollars stashed away. I’ll be fair. What percentage of the business will you sell for that amount?”
“I don’t want a partner who believes in blackmail.”
“Look, babe, I know you don’t need the money. But you don’t have any choice.”
“Are there any other stipulations?”
“You keep living here.”
“No.”
“You can have the guest room.” He nearly strangled on those words.
She looked stunned. “It’ll be awful this way, Max.”
“Anything’s better than having you move out.”
“It won’t work. Max. It won’t solve our problem.”
“I’ll take my chances.” He stood up and walked over to her. He held out his hand. “Deal?”
Tears slid down her face. A muscle worked in her throat. She shook his hand. “Deal. Fifty-fifty.”
“That’s more than fair.”
“It’s the only bargain you’ll get from me.”
He looked at her without victory. “I’ll miss you tonight.” He couldn’t say anything else—his throat was raw and tight. He left the room and shut the door gently.
Ten
“Your mother likes me.”
He made that announcement the next night as he passed her in the hall. It had been a horrible day, from the strained, silent breakfast with him, through the lunch at the restaurant, when he’d stopped in to casually hand her a check for $25,000, to this evening. They’d spent the past several hours avoiding each other.
Betty halted and looked up at him. She tried to ignore the fact that he was wearing nothing but a white robe open halfway to his navel. She pulled her own robe tighter around her pajamas. “You spoke to my mother? When?”
“When you were in the shower. She called. She invited me to the party this weekend. I confessed that you hadn’t mentioned it to me.”
“I wasn’t planning to go.”
“You are now. I told her so.”
“It’s one of those formal things, Max. Mother and Father host it every year around Thanksgiving. Surely you don’t want to spend am evening trussed up in a rented tuxedo.”
“No. But since I own a very comfortable tuxedo—two of them, in fact—I won’t mind.”
She cast her eyes down and mumbled, “I suppose I was judging a book by its camouflage again.”
He accepted her apology with a gracious nod. “By the way. Your mother is charming. A little flaky, but I mean that as a compliment. It was like talking to a hummingbird.”
“Be glad she’s a progressive hummingbird. I don’t know how to even begin to explain the living arrangement here, and I hope she and Pop don’t ask.”
“Oh, I explained. I said that we love each other and are living in sin, although we’re taking a temporary break from the sin part.” When she looked at him askance, he chuckled wickedly. “I said that you were a guest here. That’s all I said.”
“That’s all I am.” She started past. “We’ll promenade to my nouveau riche ancestral home, if you insist. I’ll borrow a dress—”
“Whoa.” He took her arm. Even through her robe and pajamas, the contact sent rivers of sensation along her skin and deep into her most defenseless desires. He stepped closer, his gaze on her mouth. “You’ll borrow a dress? Why?”
“There are little piles of ashes where my formal dresses used to hang.”
“Why not buy a few new ones? I thought you were the woman who could wreak destruction in Neiman-Marcus with a sharp charge card.”
She clasped her chest melodramatically. “What, buy my formal gowns off the rack? How tacky.”
“Betty, is there something about your finances—”
“We’re business partners. The business finances are your only concern. You saw the records at lunch. They’re fine.”
“And your personal finances?”
“Are personal.” She tried to draw her arm away. He held it long enough to keep her still for his kiss. It was a light, tender caress that left her shivering and upset. “Good night, Max,” she said tearfully.
“Good night.” He didn’t look any better than she felt.
• • •
Max handed the Jeep’s keys to a valet and went to the passenger side. Ordinarily he would have been inclined to turn his attention to the magnificent antebellum home that loomed in front of him, or to study the massive oaks and perfect gardens.
But it was impossible to stop looking at Betty. She took his hand and descended from the Jeep regally. Her gown shimmered like liquid gold. It draped from her shoulders, baring the smooth white beauty of her neck and back. The sleeves tapered to slender tubes at her wrists, emphasizing the grace of her hands. The skirt hugged her with enough decorum for a mother and father’s approval, but the slit up one side revealed her leg in a way that won a very different kind of approval from Max.
Small clusters of diamonds decorated her earlobes, and a matching pendant lay delicately on her chest, drawing the eye immediately to the gown’s neckline and the slightest, most tantalizing hint of cleavage there.
He enjoyed looking at her so much that he didn’t even mind looking at Faux Paw too. Betty tugged on her leash and called softly. The cat clambered from beh
ind the passenger seat and jumped to the driveway.
“My Jeep has never been so honored,” Max told her as he closed the passenger door behind her. “I should make a picture of you and the party animal standing next to it.”
“Flattery.”
“No. You look incredible, babe.”
Her cheeks flushed at the compliment, though she regarded him with carefully shuttered eyes. The past few days had been pure hell for both him and her. Hopefully, tonight would be a reprieve from the tension. He begged silently for there to be a dance orchestra, so that he would have an excuse to hold her. Perhaps they could make sense out of the torment they were causing each other.
He corrected himself grimly. The torment that he was causing her. The torment that he questioned more each day.
They walked under a marble portico to a massive entranceway flanked by butlers. Faux Paw prowled beside Betty, straining at the leash and hissing in the butler’s direction. Max laughed wearily. “I feel like a tour guide at a formal zoo.”
“You sound so tired. Are you all right?”
“After hardly sleeping for the past few nights? Hell, no,” he whispered back. “Are you?”
She smiled a little. “Hell, no.”
“You haven’t complimented me on my good looks. I’m depressed, that’s all.”
“I thought I gave you a clue when you came into the living room tonight. Didn’t all the staring and the stammering tell you something?”
“I thought you were just overcome by my cologne.”
She laughed for the first time in days. “You look magnificent in a tux, Major.”
He held out his arm and she slipped her hand around the elbow. They shared a private look before the butlers opened the stately old doors for them. In it she communicated both sorrow and affection. They were a team, no matter what, with bonds that couldn’t be destroyed. Would never be destroyed, he realized.
His chest swelled with pride for her, with pride at belonging to her. But you don’t belong to her, he reminded himself. Not in a way that the world would recognize, at least. Not in a way that said he was sworn to her for life, that she was sworn to him.
He wondered if all he needed was one small leap of faith. He began to pray that he could make it.
Her father had kidnapped Max for interrogation. They were smoking cigars together in the library, and she didn’t doubt that her father was trying to determine whether Max had money or at least the ambition to make money. Those were the criteria by which her father judged most men. Poor Sloan, with his bohemian attitude toward high finance, had infuriated her father. She doubted that her father would ever forgive her for spending her money on Sloan’s career. She had stopped expecting him to understand, and she made certain that she never asked for his help, financial or otherwise. His help was attached to criticism.
Sloan had a lucrative recording contract now and was rolling in money. Betty shrugged. She didn’t miss Sloan, but the irony was bitter. Pensively her thoughts turned to Max. He had no ulterior motives for needing her. He wasn’t Sloan. He was a different threat altogether, and one that she didn’t really expect to escape. She hardly knew whether she wanted to escape.
She sipped champagne in a quiet corner and searched the enormous crowd that filled the ballroom. She spied her mother, fluttering about in a ruffled black gown. Max had been correct about her. She looked like a hummingbird as she flitted from one elite guest to the next, sipping the honey from their admiration.
She was a loving mother, a sweet mother. But she was, and had always been, a totally self-centered mother, with not the slightest comprehension of anyone’s problems but her own. Betty had learned long ago to take care of herself.
And then there was her father. Smart, tough, blustery. Having dragged himself up the social and economic ladder, he now enjoyed perching at the top and looking down smugly. He was determined that no one would accuse his child of having less gumption than he’d had. Fat little rich girl. How many times had he called her that, claiming that humiliation provoked determination?
Betty swallowed the last of her champagne and nodded wryly to herself. Well, he’d been right. She was determined to get everything she wanted from life. She was determined never to be humiliated again, by anyone. She was so determined that she was letting pride strangle her most precious relationship. She shut her eyes, thinking of Max.
“Beebee. My God, look at you.”
The familiar male voice shocked her. She swung about and faced its owner. His tux was loosely cut in a nonchalant style more at home on the West Coast; his tie was his favorite color, a deep chartreuse; he wore his usual ruby stud earring, shaped like a guitar. Sloan Richards had always been colorful.
And handsome. Under a mop of winsome auburn hair he smiled at her, dimples crinkling around his mouth, boyish blue eyes lighting happily. She should have been breathless and charmed. Not so many months ago, she would have been.
“You’re a party crasher,” she said calmly. “I certainly didn’t ask my folks to invite you.”
His smile faded. He was great at looking hurt—puppyish and solemn, as if he’d just been spanked for chewing a shoe. “I flew in from the Coast to see you,” he said softly. “I knew this annual hoedown would be my best chance.” There was enormous sincerity in his eyes, which didn’t surprise her. But the anguish in them did.
She stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. He hugged her. They stepped apart and stood looking at each other in leaden silence. She couldn’t think of much to say to him. How had she ever thought that their long conversations about him, his music, and his dreams were fascinating?
“Things are going well, I assume?” she asked politely.
“Yes. No. The album’s coming along great. But I miss you. Cam we go somewhere and talk?”
She nodded. They walked down a hallway done in ostentatious French antiques. Louis the something-or-other. She could never remember which Louis her mother favored.
Sloan reached for her hands. She resolutely clasped them behind her back. His expression grew more troubled. “I want to make things up to you, Beebee.”
“There’s nothing to make up. We said our goodbyes.”
“But I was rotten to you.”
“Yes, you were.”
“After all those years of waiting for me to grow up, after all the good times and the love, and all the money you spent to help me—”
“Gratitude and apologies accepted. Are you trying to ask me for more help? If you recall, I’m broke. And a lot wiser.”
“And I’m rich. And a lot wiser.” He rested his hands on her arms and looked down at her with a yearning expression. “I’m not here to ask you for help. I’m here to see if we can start over. I want you to come out to L.A. with me, Beebee.”
“You asked me to do that before.”
“In a pretty arrogant way, as I recall. Something like, ‘Be my main groupie, would you?’ ”
“Those were pretty much the words you used.”
“Beebee, I’ve seen the light. It’s a cold, lonely world out there. It’s crazy. I need some stability in my life.” He took a deep breath. “I need someone to be there for me. Someone who’s always going to be there. You.”
“I was there for years. You kept looking over my head.”
He squeezed her shoulders. “Not anymore. I’m looking straight at you, Beebee. And I’m asking you to marry me.”
Betty was stunned. Not pleased, she realized immediately, just amazed that after being apart for almost a year, without even a phone call between them, he had waltzed into this party and asked her to marry him.
“I waited five years for that proposal,” she reminded him. “Its’s a little late now.”
“Oh, I know you need time to regroup. I’m going to be here for a week. Why don’t you and I duck out of this party and go to my hotel—”
“Excuse me,” another masculine voice interjected. “But I could swear that you’re making a pass at my lady.”
Betty gaspe
d softly. She had forgotten how silently Mcix could walk. Not that she had anything to hide. He lounged against a wall several yards away, his arms crossed over his chest, one foot propped over the other, the picture of relaxation. The slit-eyed appraisal he gave Sloan was the only indication of his mood.
Sloan shot a startled look from Max to her. “Really, Beebee?”
“Really.”
“Is he important to you?”
“Yes.”
“More important than I used to be?”
“I don’t really owe you any information about my life.”
Sloan frowned. “I can deal with competition.”
“You’re not even in the game anymore.”
Max sauntered up and stood to one side, smiling without a trace of warmth. “You must be Sloan Richards.”
Betty hurriedly introduced them. She had never seen Sloan look jealous before. She had never given him any reason to.
He chewed his lower lip and scowled. “Beebee, I know I have a lot to make up for,” he said slowly. “I still love you, Beebee. I want to many you. In a church, with flowers, cake, a honeymoon, the whole thing. I want us to have kids together. I want you to be a success with your work. You can start a great barbecue restaurant in L.A. I’ll help you.”
Betty shook her head. She could feel Max watching her. Why couldn’t he be the one making this kind of impassioned offer? Hearing it from Sloan was like a cruel joke. “I’ll call you,” she told Sloan numbly. “We’ll meet for lunch. This isn’t the time or place to—”
“Good night, Mr. Richards.” Max took her arm. He didn’t put any pressure on it, but he held it firmly.
Sloan shook his head doggedly. There was an aura of wounded loneliness about him. Betty reached out impulsively and touched his arm. “We’ll talk later. Where are you staying?”
“At the Ritz-Carlton.” He gestured numbly toward Max. “Beebee, you’re not seriously involved with this straight-edged character, are you? You’re not engaged or anything, right?”